NREL

One of the big advantages of driving fossil fuel-powered vehicles is that it's easy to find a place to fill up. In the more than a century since the world's first purpose-built gas station was built in St. Louis, Missouri in 1905, a massive worldwide infrastructure has emerged to keep our vehicles running. As automakers make the move to electric vehicles, early adopters are faced with a lack of infrastructure to keep batteries charged, however, the number of public EV charging stations is steadily growing and Google is now doing its bit to help make tracking them down easier by adding EV charging station location information to Google Maps. Read More

While they offer much lower efficiencies than inorganic photovoltaic cells, organic solar cells are cheaper to produce and are lightweight and flexible. This makes them suitable for a wider range of applications than rigid solar cells, including clothing and bags. Konarka has been producing its organic based photovoltaic (OPV) solar cells under the name of Power Plastic for a number of years now and the National Energy Renewable Laboratory (NREL) has just announced that Konarka’s latest organic based photovoltaic (OPV) solar cells have demonstrated a record breaking 8.3 percent efficiency. Read More

When scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) tried to apply their expertise in solar cell technology to build a green LED light from the ground up, they surprisingly centered the objective at their very first try. In doing so they solved a long-standing technological problem and paved the way for the large-scale employment of white LEDs for public and domestic illumination over the course of the next few years. Read More